In February 1913 the wreck of the “Owl” train near Houston killed locomotive engineer John W. Latchford. Prominent Heights Masons, J. M. French among them, served as his active pallbearers, conducting the service from Latchford’s Yale Street residence. The lodge’s role in the neighborhood was already what it would remain for decades: present at the hardest moments.
The source
Houston Chronicle, Feb. 3, 1913, p. 6: “Latchford’s Watch Stopped in Houston When Wreck Occurred,” and in the Mortuary column the Latchford funeral notice naming his Masonic pallbearers.
